Sunday, August 15, 2010

MG Road

The MG in MG Road stands for Mahatma Ghandi, as per Wikipedia. This is one of the busiest roads in the city and a big part of the TWU Amazing Race held on Sunday, August 15. It features tons of shops, restaurants, pushy street salesmen, and street dogs.

To say the road is bustling is a vast understatement. It reminds me of Chicago during the Blackhawks' Stanley Cup Parade. Today was India's Independence Day, but the word from locals is the area generally looks like this:

Shops are compact here. Moving to Chicago was a shock because of how much less space existed for stores than in Michigan and suburbs generally. Coming here is just as much of a shock. You'll find rows with more stores than I ever thought could comfortably exist:

Unsurprising are the stores that feel right at home in India:

The list of surprising in much longer though. The American presence can be felt in every corner of the world. It sometimes shows up in odd places, as in jeans companies (Wrangler, Lee, Levi's) having their own stores -- a rarity in the States if it even exists. The short version of what I was surprised, and slightly disappointed, to see:

Now, of course it isn't all clothes here. The restaurant you'd expect to be here definitely is -- and even does home delivery

But also so is one that I didn't expect at all.Bonus: it appears to be the cleanest KFC I've ever seen. Could it be I'm looking forward to eating at KFC for the first time ever?

@Carol/Kevan:The lunch at ThoughtWorks is catered, so it's different Indian options every day. Random restaurants and little shops for other meals. Things are cheap here -- I got a pack of 50 or so crackers for Rs. 4, which is just under $0.09. Definitely have more coming on this!